A lesson too late for Dino Rossi

Republican nominee Tom Foley has just conceded the Connecticut gubernatorial race to Democrat Dan Malloy. And he went the extra mile at his press conference, too, telling all of his supporters that despite some irregularities and errors in the vote-counting process, Malloy positively did win the race by a narrow margin. And as such, he will not legally contest the election…

“Once all this information was available to me this morning, deciding what to do was easy,” Foley said. “I have told my team that I am not willing to pursue a legal challenge to exclude photocopied ballots. Despite their irregularity, I believe that they do represent the will of well-intentioned voters, and should be included in the results.”

Foley further explained that the election was a genuine victory for Malloy, “And this result should not be questioned. I hope my supporters will accept my word on this. As soon as I am done with this press conference, I will call Dan Malloy to congratulate him on winning the election, and wish him good luck.”

That’s what my people call being a mensch.

And had Dino Rossi been similarly gracious after his heartbreakingly close loss back in 2004, there’s a good chance he might be governor today, instead of just a three-time statewide loser. As I wrote back in 2005, just after his election contest had been dismissed, Rossi missed a golden opportunity to lead by example, and ultimately reap the rewards:

Had he bowed out gracefully in early January — at a time when the GOP’s most inflammatory allegations were at a fever pitch — he could have assumed the mantle of a martyr who sacrificed his own personal ambitions for the good of the state. Disenfranchised military voters, shady “enhanced” ballots, mishandled provisionals, and felon, dead, and double voters would have forever clouded the results of this election. But now with the charges “dismissed with prejudice” by a cherry-picked judge in conservative Chelan County, voters will be rightly suspicious of any attempt by Rossi to brand himself as a victim of corrupt Democrats. To the swing voters — mostly Democrats — who made this race closer than it ever should have been, the allegations are no longer merely unproved… they are disproved.

And it was Rossi’s inability to recapture the crucial support of so-called “Dinocrats” that ultimately doomed his two subsequent statewide races before they started.

What Goldy does here is becoming a common model for political discourse, and it is an inherently corrosive one. Ultimately you can’t use hate for the ‘other’ as a weapon against them in a civil society. It will turn on those using it as surely as the night follows the day. No victory in this struggle is possible, or desired. After all, if the evil leftists or the malign right ceased to exist where would partisan haters like Goldy turn the bile that resides in their souls?

I won’t bother commenting here again, for a few reasons. I find myself reacting to the angry bile Goldy and his disciples express, and responding in kind. Frankly, that isn’t the kind of person I want to be.

At any rate, the narcotic repetitiveness of the Orwellian 2 minutes hate that is HA simply doesn’t warrant any more of my time. My children requite with a deep personal joy time spent with them. Good books reward my study, and good music my attention. My dogs are delighted just to go for a walk or fetch a tennis ball. My wife inexplicably seems to enjoy my company, far above me though she is as a person. By contrast, time spent here is time finding a perverse enjoyment in the baser side of human nature. And frankly, life is too damn short to waste it that way.

Best of luck to all of you (even you, Steve.) There are some smart and interesting folks here, who deserve better than the slow descent into the sewer of hatred that is this site.

I always had a perversely fun, yet in the end a very frustrating and disatisfying time sparring with you.

Somehow the confluence of ‘I got mine’ style libertarianism, an erudite but ultimately ostentatious and baroque writing style, and the frequent psychotic swings between quoting Kirkegaard and channeling Glenn Beck just didn’t work for me.

Best of luck to all of you (even you, Steve.) There are some smart and interesting folks here, who deserve better than the slow descent into the sewer of hatred that is this site. Wow. this seems like transference. He seems to be damning us for the things he feels about himself. If you read all the things he writes, he’s the one one who hates. He hates FDR, he hates progressive ideas, he hates Obama, he hates liberals, he hates taxes on the rich, he hates social programs. Lost has a lot of hate in him.

I can say Dino was duped by the BIAW into running, yeah that’s the ticket. Maybe he can save Bank Of America with his cunning as a 3 time loser in politics. Hey, even CEO’s like Carley and Whitman claimed such bullshit.

LD, it’s a little unclear from your comment, but it appears you’re claiming that Murray beat Rossi by 1%. If this is what you’re saying, you need to try again. As of 2 minutes ago, it was about 3.8%. It should end up right around 4% when all the votes are counted.

How wrong you are, using the standard you are using it was Gregoire that should have bowed out. Rossi won in two of three countsb and she chose to continue…the sword cuts both ways now Goldy, you are saying your governor did not quit when she should have. This is why almost half of the state hates her.

@23 Apparently you two fucking idiots don’t realize that the law requires all ballots be counted, requires recounts in close races, and only the official final tally counts.

The first two counts don’t mean a fucking thing because they were purely machine counts and the machines don’t read ballots that are frayed, torn, or have stray marks (that weren’t necessarily put there by the voter).

Only if you believe some voters who have done nothing wrong don’t have a right to have their ballots counted with everyone else’s, can you defend using a purely machine count as your “proof” that Rossi “won” the election.

@4 “Ultimately you can’t use hate for the ‘other’ as a weapon against them in a civil society. It will turn on those using it as surely as the night follows the day. No victory in this struggle is possible, or desired.”

@32 I believe that’s what that fool Beckoner postulated on a recent thread – Jesus is coming again, and he’s coming back as a football player-turned-politician using Fox as a platform. I think these people actually believe this stuff.

Good-bye Lost. I will miss you. I do think you are unable to actually argue the strongly held beliefs you hold. Your analysis is often simple-minded and you fail to back up your “free market” will solve everything rhetoric. Your ideas that taxes are stealing are so…14th century.

That said – at least you are sincere. You don’t LIE like Puddy and you are consistent. You do call “liberals’ names – but overall you are not mean spirited. I believe that I would probalby like you as a person – even if I vehemently disagree with your opinions. I used tothink I would like Puddy – but he is too much of a partisan LIAR who cannot argue like an adult.

Roger Rabbit, it would take 15 C-130 sorties to move 369,000 pounds of currency from the East Coast to Iraq. For a single C-130 to accomplish this feat, it would probably take nearly a month with normal crew rests and maintenance.

More likely is that the Air Force would have used a C-17 or two or possibly a C-5 to do this job. Since the nature of the cargo would be sensitive, the mission would have been accomplished with aerial refueling, probably using AR track 10 Northeast off the coast of Maine and an additional refueling on one of the colored AR tracks over the UK (black, orange, or some other).

In any event, a C-130 wold NEVER be used for the job. You sir, are a liar by stating that a C-130 was used.”

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